' so we have a chef all our
own. Didn't you ever hear the story o' Cookie?"

[Illustration: SLIDING DOWN TO WORK.

Lighthouse-builders on cableway from top of cliff to platform beside
reef, unapproachable by boats.]

"Never," said the boy, "go ahead!"

"Quite a while ago," the light-keeper began, "the Service hired a cook
for Tillamook. He was a jim-dandy of a cook an' could get good money
ashore. But he'd been crossed in love, or he'd lost his money, or
something, I don't remember what, an' so he wanted to forget his sorrows
in isolation."

"Sort of hermit style?" suggested Eric.

"That's it, exactly. Well, Cookie took the job, an' the tender tried to
land him here. Three times the tender came out, an' each trip the sea
was kickin' up didoes so that he couldn't land. He got scared right down
to his toes an' they couldn't make him get into the boat. But each time
he went back to town, after having renigged that way, his friends used
to josh the life out of him.

"So, one day, when it was fairly calm, he said he would go. He'd been
teased into it. The captain o' the tender chuckled, for he knew there
was quite a sea running outside, but they started all right. Sure
enough, soon as they rounded the cape, the sea was runnin' a bit. It
didn't look so worse from the deck o' the tender, an' Breuger--that was
the cook's name--was telling the first officer how the world was going
to lose the marvelous cookin' that he alone could do.

"But, as soon as Tillamook Rock come in sight, Cookie's courage began to
ooze. He talked less of his cookin' and more o' what he called 'the
perils of the sea.' As soon as the tender come close to the rock, he
fell silent. The boat was swung out an' Cookie was told to get in. As
before, he refused.

"'That's all right,' said the skipper, who had been expectin' him to
back out. 'We'll help you. It's a bit hard climbing with the
rheumatism.'"

"Did he have rheumatism?" asked the boy, grinning in anticipation.

"You couldn't prove he didn't have it!" responded the light-keeper with
an answering flicker of a smile. "The captain turned to a couple of
sailors. 'Give him a hand,' he said, 'he needs it.'

"Two husky A.B.'s chucked Breuger into the boat, an' before Cookie
realized what was happenin', the boat was in the water an' cast off from
the side o' the tender. But he had some sense, after all, for he saw
there was no use makin' a fuss then. It was a bad landin' that day,
four or f